WisPolitics: Holperin defends departure from state as Simac looks to overcome inexperience, negative ads
8/8/2011

By Robert Imrie
For WisPolitics.com

WAUSAU -- The veteran northern lawmaker who survived a recall two decades ago and the political newcomer with Tea Party ties who are squaring off in an historic recall election agree on one thing – reform the recall law.

“I don’t think Wisconsin voters want this to become the new normal of Wisconsin politics,” said state Sen. Jim Holperin, D-Conover, referring to summer special recall elections affecting six Republican and three Democratic state senators. “The way the law is written, that could happen.”

Voters in the sprawling Senate District 12 decide Aug. 16 whether to keep Holperin, a Democrat with a long resume in government and politics, or replace him with the Republican woman who forced the recall election. Kim Simac, a 52-year-old Eagle River Tea Party activist, horse trainer and mother of nine children (including six from a previous marriage), has never held an elective office.

Simac, the easy winner in a GOP primary last month, said she agrees with Holperin that the recall law should be reformed to specifically list what constitutes dereliction of duty or malfeasance in office. She also might support requiring an embattled incumbent to pay some of the special election costs as a way to deter bad behavior, she said.

A week after six recall elections affecting Republican incumbents on Tuesday, two Democrats will be on the ballot -- Holperin and Kenosha-area state Sen. Bob Wirch. One Democratic incumbent, Sen. Dave Hansen of Green Bay, already has won. But while Hansen breezed to victory over his recall organizer, beset by legal troubles, Holperin is predicted to have a much tougher time against Simac. If Democrats win three seats and take control of the Republican-run Senate, the Holperin-Simac race figures to become an all-out battleground as Republicans seek to return to power on Aug. 16.

A negative for Holperin is his time in Illinois with the rest of Senate Democrats, who went south to block rapid passage of the Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining changes.

“It’s going good. Who knows?” said Holperin, the 60-year-old native of Eagle River who narrowly won the seat in 2008 after serving as state tourism secretary and six terms as a state Assemblyman from the area in the 1980s and 1990s. He survived a recall in 1990 at the height of unrest over Chippewa Indian spearfishing.

“I meet people every day who say, ‘I supported you before but you left the state and I am voting against you.’ The question is how big that segment is.”

District 12 includes all or parts of Florence, Forest, Langlade, Lincoln, Marathon, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Oneida, Shawano and Vilas counties, a heavily forested region of mostly farming, logging, tourism, small businesses, manufacturing, hunting and fishing. See a profile of the district.

A barrage of TV commercials portray Simac as a politically extreme small business owner who hasn’t paid state income taxes in some years and Holperin as an out-of-touch politician who wrongly walked off the job in the heat of a political debate – and still got paid.

“It has been a very interesting run,” said Simac, a native of Chicago who moved to northern Wisconsin decades ago. “Everybody seems to know me because of the negative ads.”

Says Holperin, “There are very few undecideds, at least fewer than in a normal election. There is kind of a higher level of energy and emotion involved in this race.”

Holperin, who showed up in Wausau recently to watch the governor sign the new concealed carry law long pushed by Republicans, and Simac expect a large voter turnout for the recall – at least 50 percent of eligible voters.

“I hope everybody doesn’t go fishing because it is a pretty good thing to do on a summer day,” Simac said with a chuckle. “They will be talking about it for years.”

In addition to tightening the recall law, the two also agree that state Supreme Court justices should continue being elected by voters despite acrimony among justices and investigation into a physical confrontation between two of them

On other issues, however, they are far apart:

**Collective bargaining**

Holperin, who characterizes himself as an independent thinker willing to work with Republicans on issues like establishing a venture capital fund to help create new jobs, said full collective bargaining for government workers should be restored. But that won’t happen “any time soon.”

Simac, who insists she can work with Democrats on incentives to make sure senior citizens don’t flee the state, supports the anti-union law.

“I don’t think we need to be changing anything more right now,” she said.

**Education**

Some education advocates suggest raising the state sales tax rate and dedicating a portion of the increase to schools. Holperin said he wouldn’t propose or back that change, unless there’s a clear groundswell of support from voters. “I don’t know if that will ever come,” he said.

Simac said no new taxes are needed. It’s time for government to “work within our means. We are all going to have to learn to do more with less and tighten our belts,” she said.

Holperin opposes splitting the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the UW System, giving the university more freedom to manage its budget. Simac is undecided.

**Jobs and the economy**

Simac said growing the economy and creating jobs is her solution for resolving the more than $1 billion debt in the state’s unemployment trust fund. “Get all the people up and working,” she said.

Holperin said he would support recommendations from the Unemployment Compensation Advisory Council, which has a history of even-handed and nonpartisan advice to the Legislature that generally includes increased employer taxes and some modification of worker benefits.

“We can’t do this all at once,” Holperin said. “A little bit of each and do it over time.”